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I think it’s important to make a distinction between high emotional reactivity, rejection sensitivity, social intelligence and empathy. Many of the people I meet who say they are empaths or HSP seem to be remarkably bad at sensing how I feel. It seems they are mostly very highly emotionally reactive, and they end up projecting their high emotion on me, thinking that what they are feeling must be what I am feeling. They come across as very un-empathic, insensitive and closed off from the world around them. It’s all about them, their feels and it’s almost as if I don’t exist – all while they keep repeating how in tune they are with others.

Emotional Reactivity

High emotional reactivity is a real thing, and could be correlated with high general sensitivity. I’ve noticed how my own emotional reactivity varies, depending on how well I am doing. I remember when I was really tired and kind of worn down from some stuff that was going on, and there was a video of a girl in Syria who cried she didn’t deserve anything that was happening to her. It hit me like a fucking brick. When I am doing well, it’s as if my emotional ‘padding’ is better and I can absord the emotional impact of witnessing emotion in others. When I already used up much of that reserve for my own stuff, the pain of others causes more raw responses in me. It’s when people say they can sense tension in the air when they enter a room, and they have a hard time enduring it.

Emotional reactivity is all about our own responses, our own feelings about what we perceive in the world around us. People who are generally high in emotional reactivity can get a bit caught up in their feels about the feels they feel about the feels they feel exist in others. They end up really far removed from the experiences and reality of others, so deep in their ‘feel festival’ that any chance of empathy is out the window.

People with high emotional reactivity are peaks of ‘being’. They have passionate emotions that sweep over them like a strong wave. They love like an avalanche, their loyalty is unmeasurable. They go deep into the abyss and bring up these wonders of intensity and happiness and pain and craving. When I’m with them and I am present with my own pain, they might crumble, not because they are empathic and sense I am crumbling, but because their mirror neurons work normally but they crumble under the pain they feel from me. I’m okay with my pain. But in them, everything is echo’d and mirrored. And they tell me, tears in their eyes “I can sense you’re dying inside” and I’m like “bitch don’t even fucking even”.

Dealing with someone with high emotional reactivity can be lonely.

Rejection Sensitivity

Rejection sensitivity is not the same as emotional reactivity. I don’t know about you, but I don’t generally feel a whole lot about the people I don’t like. It’s just, you know, they’re people I don’t like and my emotional landscape is filled with other stuff. But people who call themselves empaths sometimes describe how difficult it is for them to be around people who don’t like them, because they strongly feel how that other person feels, and they internalise is, causing them to dislike themselves. But I don’t think this is empathy. What they describe is not just feeling what the other person is feeling (as in, they don’t like you), what they describe is how they’re making it personal. They don’t like me, so I must not be likeable.

There’s nothing wrong with personalising rejection, I think we all experience this. I mean, I know for a fact I feel pain when people reject me. It’s one of the most painful feelings in the world. Internalising this isn’t empathy, because empathy is about the other person. Internalising their rejection is about us, about ourselves. It’s about not being liked, which is a small thing to them but huge to us, and about our own response to that.

I do better at dealing with rejection and people not liking me when I am doing well, when I am in touch with myself and most importantly, when my empathy is high.

I deal better with people not liking me when my empathy is high.

Empathy

I work as a psychologist, a therapist. Part of my job is understanding and feeling into what my client is experiencing, but specifically, what they are experiencing from their frame of reference. It’s about placing myself in their shoes, looking at things from their perspective. I don’t think of myself as a necessarily empathic person. I consider empathy a skill, and I work at strengthening it every day. Empathy is not about me, how I feel or my emotions. Empathy is placing myself in their shoes, looking at things from their perspective. It’s about broadening my perspective and including theirs.

I like the idea of holding space. I like the idea of being space for them, being an arena for the other where they can kind of place it all and look at it, without me adding all of my stuff. Empathy is about them.

When I am high in empathy I can understand why some people don’t like me. I can see things from their perspective, and I don’t bring myself into it. I can see how I hurt them without immediately considering what that says about me or how I feel about me. Empathy is not about my ego or about my needs. From empathy, compassion follows. It makes us a better, nicer person.

Social Intelligence

And then there is social intelligence.

That’s the thing people on the autism spectrum experience trouble with. People with autism can be plenty emotionally reactive, having allll them feels. And they can be sensitive to rejection, just like anyone else. People with autism can be amazingly empathic. But social rules and cues don’t seem so obvious to them.

They seem obvious to psychopaths. Psychopaths lack emotional reactivity or empathy, but they know how this shit works.

All of these things can exist independent from each other.

Emotional Reactivity and Empathy

I have this feeling that emotional reactivity and empathy might be a bit negatively correlated. When you’re all up in your feels about the feels you feel about how they might feel… that’s not about them. That’s not being sensitive to how the other person is feeling. I’m amazed how people who call themselves empaths are so often wrong about the feelings of others. They often seem to project what’s inside of them.

Empathy is about allowing the other person to be everything they are, and being curious about it. Tapping into it. Trying to place yourself in their shoes. When they don’t like you, that’s part of their experience and that’s that. They have their whole landscape of consciousness, such an amazing spectrum of experience, and their feels about you is so marginal…

I’ve found people low on emotional reactivity to be generally more empathic, because they focus on the other. They don’t assume to know how the other feels because they have all these feels. Instead, they are interested to know. There is room for me, because they are not full of their emotions. They hold space. Empty space, inviting space, not just triggered responding space that is all over itself.

I like my people intense. I like avalanches. I love their entire universes and hope to invite them in, so I can experience it with them. I care about my own emotional experience and I think it’s important to delve into it, embrace it, and feel free to share it with others. I think that raw vulnerability is a part of real intimacy, connecting with others. We are more than arena’s for others, we are more than our ability to place ourselves in another’s shoes. We have our own shoes, our own perspective, our own experience to fill.

But I like having the occasional empath around. They are nicer, kinder people.

I’ve felt a bit apprehensive criticising trigger warnings. The thing is, I believe the requests for trigger warnings come from a genuine desire to make the world a safer, more welcoming place for people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I don’t believe for a second that those in favour of trigger warnings want to be protected from negative feelings or wish to censor what we can freely discuss, as some writers have argued. I don’t agree that it’s just a way of avoiding discomfort. Instead, I think it’s genuine kindness and a commitment to changing our world to be more inclusive to everyone that’s motivating trigger warning requests. I think trigger warnings are a bad idea, and I’ll explain why later, but I don’t believe they come from anything other than kind, helpful intentions. I’d recommend reading the above articles if you think trigger warnings are just content indications for the sensitive, or all about avoiding feeling the feels. I will not be arguing against that straw man.

The reasoning behind trigger warnings is that people who have experienced certain types of trauma (specifically assault and sexual violence, although trigger warnings for racism and sexism are becoming more common) can be ‘triggered‘ by mentions of that violence. When a person is triggered they can experience flashbacks, intrusive memories, severe anxiety and self-destructive behaviour. So it follows that person would benefit from a warning about the content of a text, movie, etc. if it includes discussions of violence. This makes it easier for the person with that trauma to navigate what they want to be confronted with, for example by not reading a text that discusses rape. Trigger warnings can even be understood as a way of navigating consent, I let that person know beforehand what I intend to do (discuss rape) so they can make an informed decision whether they want to read my text or not.

As a therapist who has worked with people suffering from PTSD I really understand where this is coming from. Being confronted with a ‘trigger’ can send a sufferer into flashbacks, which can disrupt their life for hours, days, sometimes weeks. In severe cases, being triggered can cause the person with PTSD to harm themselves or become suicidal. It’s heartbreaking and honestly I completely understand why, as a society and inside our communities, we want to do what we can to support people who are going through this. A trigger warning, in that context, just seems like such a small and effortless thing to do, right? A small bit of kindness that can prevent so much misery.

And I am so in favour of changing our world to become more inclusive and welcoming, and sometimes it’s seemingly small or effortless things that can make all the difference. For example, I make a conscious effort to use inclusive language when it comes to gender. Not everyone identifies as male or female, not everyone has gender-norms confirming bodies, and reflecting that in our language costs us literally nothing. It has no negative effects at all, while at the same time making the world a kinder place for everyone. I think we should do more things like this, and I think trigger warnings come from a desire to do exactly that: a small, harmless thing that makes the world a bit kinder.

The thing is though, I don’t believe trigger warnings are harmless. Let me start with a related example. Some people with an eating disorder become deeply triggered when they are confronted with a situation that includes public eating. They report panic and self-harming behaviour, not unlike what some sufferers of PTSD report when they are confronted with triggers. Still, it would be a truly bad idea to give a ‘content warning’ for each event that would include public eating. Yes, it would prevent a lot of pain for those few people with eating disorders who are triggered by public eating. But it reinforces an unhealthy idea that eating is a dangerous thing. If we start giving content warnings when an event will include a meal, if we start behaving in an eating disordered manner as a society, unhealthy attitudes towards food will only flourish.

Now I want to stress that if someone is suffering from a mental illness, they should do what they have to do to get through whatever they are going through. I don’t believe in policing how people deal with what life has handed them, and good or healthy coping with psychological problems is an individual thing. If you’re dealing with an eating disorder and you need to avoid public eating, then you go and do that. It is completely fine to ask people around you to give you a warning so you can avoid things that trigger you, so you can take care of yourself. But it would not be a good idea for all of us, as a habit, to start warning each other when we intend to eat food.

One of the more common triggers is, actually, depictions of ‘normal’ sex. Because sexual violence so often doesn’t ‘look violent’, watching a scene where two people have tender sex can be the worst trigger in the world. Still, I think we all intuitively feel that ‘trigger warning: vanilla sex between two consenting adults’ would not be a good idea. And that’s not because we don’t take people who are triggered by depictions of sex seriously, of course we do. And it’s not because nobody it triggered by regular sex: many people are, and it might even be a more common trigger than depictions of rape. So why is nobody arguing for trigger warnings for ‘normal’ sex? I think it’s because we all feel that sex is not dangerous. But it’s gotten in our heads that depictions of violence are.

Some people who oppose trigger warnings argue that trigger warnings discourage exposure, and therefore are bad for people with PTSD. This is nonsense. Simple exposure to triggers does not do anyone any good, and it shows a great misunderstanding of exposure therapy to think unwanted exposure to things that scare or deeply upset us has anything to do with effective exposure in PTSD-treatment. It’s belittling and incorrect to think refusing the use of trigger warnings would be better for their mental health, that we’re just triggering them ‘for their own good’. This is not how exposure therapy works.

People who oppose trigger warnings have argued that people just want to avoid negative feelings, that we’re becoming too sensitive, that we can’t even handle being confronted with views different from our own. I could not disagree more. If anything, we should become more sensitive. Sensitive of our own emotions, our own needs. We should become more accommodating, more empathic, more willing to change. Our society needs changing. We need to become more aware of the ways we can make our spaces more safe and welcoming to people of colour, people with non-normative gender identities, people with disabilities, women. I’m constantly figuring out how to stop the subtle ways we hinder and harm each other, the ways we make each other invisible, and finding opportunities to make this world a kinder place. Opposing trigger warnings might be one way to do that.

In an individual’s case, trigger warnings may simply be a way of coping. I don’t care if it reinforces or violates dysfunctional associations, the world is not a therapy setting. People need to do what they need to do to kind of deal with everything, and I think we should be supporting each other instead of policing how each of us copes.

So I do not claim that people who suffer from certain experiences do not know best what they need in order to manage that. I’d actually argue the complete opposite: people know best, we should not police how people cope, we are not each other’s therapists, we should not demand ‘perfect’ coping, we need to be each other’s support and respect people’s own insights into what works for them. Avoiding certain triggers and asking people around you to give you a trigger warning for things that are particularly triggering to you is fine.

But I have big reservations about using trigger warnings in a general sense, not because it’s bad for individual people with PTSD, but because of the modelling effect it has. For example, if my mom is afraid of spiders and I see her become afraid, this models the fearful expectancy and increases my chances of becoming phobic myself.

Say trigger warnings become customary. Before scenes including sexual violence on Netflix they show a trigger warning. Before discussing sexual violence in class there’s a trigger warning. When there’s a rape scene in a book, they put a trigger warning on the back. A sort of cultural understanding develops that depictions of sexual violence is not the sort of thing that a person should be exposed to without a warning. Because those depictions can be so triggering to a person who has experienced trauma that it becomes harmful.

This models an expectancy that depictions of violence could trigger to such an extent that it should be avoided.

And say I then got raped.

The groundwork for the dysfunctional expectancy has been planted, there’s this sort of half-truth that people who have experienced rape will often be triggered by depictions of violence (even though that wasn’t really the case, it’s usually other stuff). Will this increase my chances of experiencing that dysfunctional expectancy myself? Have my chances of being triggered by such depictions increased? Have we modeled a harmful association?

We don’t know. But considering how anxiety disorders work, we are sure environmental factors have effects. And we know anxiety symptoms and disorders feed of modelling, quite strongly.

So if you use trigger warnings, I don’t think you’re an over-sensitive PC-policing free-speech hater. I really don’t. I think you’re wrong, and I think we should be having a conversation about this, but I thank you for being kind.

The idea that sex is something a woman gives to a man, and a man takes from a woman, is of course very problematic. But when we’re talking about sex work it is often suggested that a sex worker does what a non-sex worker does for free, and I could not disagree more. Some even call non-sex workers ‘amateurs’ and say they can’t understand why you’d have sex for free if you can get paid for it. I find it offensive. Sex work is not the paid version of sex.

There is a reason it’s called sex work: you are providing a service, a sexual experience, it’s about them and not you. When you have sex it’s about both of your sexual needs and desires, when you do sex work it’s primarily theirs. That doesn’t mean you can’t have great sex when you work, but the primary focus is on their desires.

I see many similarities between sex work and therapy. Both are very intimate on a psychological level, but constrained by time and place. When I’m with a patient I open my head and heart to them, I focus my empathy on them and let them in. Sex workers do the same thing, create an emotional connection, get into their head and their feelings. I often feel genuine affection for my patients, and sex workers for their clients. Both are a paid relationship, and are temporary. I wouldn’t listen to them for 45 minutes if I didn’t get paid to do it, a sex worker would not meet a client for a session if there was no money involved. Both are one-sided interactions: my therapeutic relationship is not about me and my emotional needs. It’s about them and what I can provide for them. That does not mean I don’t enjoy our contact, I often do, and I don’t cross any boundaries I don’t feel comfortable with. In sex work it’s the same, it’s not about you, it’s about them, although you can enjoy being with your client and always protect your boundaries, the interaction is about them. It’s a form of paid intimacy, and I love that I’m being paid to share something like that with others :).

But a good friend is not an amateur therapist. Listening to a loved one is not the ‘free’ version of what I do for a living, when I patiently support a friend through a rough patch I’m not ‘giving it away for free’.

Sex work, like therapy work, is an actual job with skills and responsibilities, not just a paid version of what everyone else gives away for free.

On April 24th 2014 I gave a lecture on BDSM in sexual care and health care to over a hundred doctors, psychologists, sexologists and psychiatrists. This lecture was part of a conference on practical aspects of sexual care and health care, a conference which I organised with the Sexology Practice in Tilburg, in collaboration with the Elisabeth Hospital in Tilburg. The conference was accredited by the NVVS (Nederlandse Wetenschappelijke Vereniging voor Seksuologie), the Dutch sexology organisation. This text is a rough summary of my lecture on BDSM.

As a psychologist I have specialised in working with sexual minorities, including SMers. Not only have I personally been involved in the BDSM scene for close to a decade, I’ve studied scientific research on the subject and worked with dozens of kinksters. When other professionals contact me with questions about BDSM they often seem a bit concerned or unsure of what to do. My message today is: BDSMers are great clients and it’s an advantage if your client turns out to be kinky!

We’re talking about a large group. It is estimated one in ten people have an interest in BDSM, and around 3 to 4 % identify as SMer. The BDSM population consists of about as many women as men. Of women, 65% prefer the submissive role and 30% identify as dominant. Men are usually dominant (60%) and 30% call themselves submissive. An interesting finding is that around 50% of both men and women enjoy both roles.

Kinksters might engage in bondage, sensory play, humiliation, roleplay (including Master/slave), painplay and many other activities. Note the use of the word ‘play’ – for many kinksters it is precisely that, a form of play. BDSM is fun, brings excitement and happiness into their lives and feels like a healthy part of who they are and what they do. For example, two friends of mine have a continuous D/s relationship. One of the rules in their relationship is that she cannot have any crisps without his permission. So there she is, holding her hand just above a bowl of crisps, not touching them and there’s a huge grin on her face. He tries to look stern “I said no, girl. You don’t want to get into trouble, trust me”. Her hand hovers there for a bit, then she grabs hold of one of the crisps, pushes it into her mouth and runs, laughing and protesting. BDSM can bring excitement and fun to everyday situations.

It appears to be impossible to distinguish kinksters from non-kinksters, except for the fact that kinksters are kinky. Contrary to what early psychologists believed, BDSM is not correlated with any Axis I classifications (depression/trauma/etc), any Axis II classification (personality disorders) or anything negative or pathological at all. Quite the opposite, actually. Some research has shown significantly higher levels of education and income than in the general population, show that kinksters are more involved in community service and a recent study in Tilburg show favourable psychological characteristics in BDSMers.

So, if these kinksters are all so happy and healthy, why are they looking for help from psychologists, doctors and other professionals? Well, for the same reason non-kinky people need help… and a few other kink-specific problems. It’s important to remember that BDSM is not always part of the problem. A depression can just be a depression, no matter how perverted your client is. But kinksters can present some pretty kink-specific problems that can be puzzling to non-kinky professionals. For example, many couples experience that all the ‘workload’ is on the Dominant partner’s shoulders. The sub wants more D/s, the sub wants more play, but the Dominant has to do it, organise it. I discuss a couple where the sub is the active type, if she wants something done she’ll do it, and the Dom is more the laid-back type. Both partners want more BDSM in their lives, but after a long day of getting the kids to school, working all day, coming home, doing the housework, getting dinner ready, putting the kids to bed and finally landing their behinds on the couch in the evening, playing feels like “another item on my to-do list” for the Dominant, whereas the submissive would love to wind down with some kink. I ask the audience what they would advise, and we discuss the option of putting more of the ‘workload’ for play on the submissive. Subs can be ‘Rupsje Nooitgenoeg’ (The Very Hungry Caterpillar) so being realistic about the amount of time and energy that is available for kink seems important.

I was once contacted by a social work organisation that offered assisted-living housing. One of their clients came out as kinky and had started to attend BDSM parties and munches. They were quite alarmed and wondered if they would one day find their client dead in the gutter after one of these parties, they imagined the BDSM scene was a very violent place. They were also concerned their client was too obsessed with BDSM, as she had started wearing a BDSM symbol around her neck and had BDSM-themed art on her walls. I explained ‘BDSM puberty’. When people find out they’re kinky (or gay) they can go through a phase where it’s all they can think or talk about. Visit ALL the gay bars, be active in ALL the gay rights movements, wear ALL the rainbows! Or, in the case of a kinkster, visit ALL the events, wear ALL the outfits, have ALL the play! I was able to reassure the professionals in this organisation that there was no problem.

But BDSM can be risky, although not in the way a non-kinkster might think. I showed the audience two pictures of BDSM, one with a quite serene and artsy bondage scene and one with a black and blue behind. Bruises and welts might seem scary but are in reality usually harmless, it’s actually the bondage scene that poses more risks. Heavy psychological play might seem intimidating. But kinksters do not display above average symptoms of PTSS (post-traumatic stress disorder), trauma or distress. Accidents, however, do happen. A worrying finding is that kinksters do not usually feel comfortable seeking medical or psychological help, as they are afraid of judgement and discrimination. Sadly, this fear is often justified. SM participants lose custody of children, security clearances, inheritances, jobs, are disowned, assaulted and are victims of persecution and prosecutions. In my own kinky social circle I know of three parents who were reported to Child Services exclusively because of their kink. BDSM can be risky because the non-kinky world makes it risky.

People who don’t deviate from sexual norms usually don’t really have to talk about what they do. There’s a script that can be followed: first kissing, touching breasts, stimulating genitals with hands or mouth and finally penetration. This script can be harmful and does cause sexual problems, but it alleviates you from the responsibility of talking about your desires. When you start to deviate from that heterosexual vanilla norm however, the scripts become useless and you have to communicate your wants and needs. Or else you might show up with diapers while your partner was getting ready for a suspension-scene! In practice this means your kinky clients are used to talking about sex, consent, boundaries and fantasies. They use things like safewords, activity-lists and soft and hard boundaries. Their experience in open communication is a great advantage in therapy sessions. I’ve noticed kinky clients are very willing to do their homework and are creative and playful. Kinky clients are fun clients. And honestly, they often have ‘fun’ problems. I recently saw a couple who wanted help because, when she was being cheeky, he didn’t give her a big smack across the face!

And with kinky clients, as a professional you can really make a difference, which makes working with this population all the more rewarding. I’ve spoken with numerous kinksters who have been told they were sick, they weren’t capable of intimacy, who have received treatment to get rid of the kink. By simply listening, helping them with their actual problems instead of making a problem out of BDSM, by offering some psycho-education on sexuality and diversity, you can make such a difference in a kinkster’s life.

Working with kinky clients can be a learning experience for professionals. Be aware of your own preconceptions, not everything you’ve heard or seen on tv is necessarily true. Be responsible for your own education, too often professionals bring their ignorance and curiosity into their working relationship and use their client’s time to ask questions when they should’ve done their own homework. There are many books and websites on BDSM, including my own (marijkespraktijken.nl). Learn to differentiate between your own emotional reaction and another person’s experience. When you’re a heterosexual man, imagining sex with another man might evoke some pretty negative emotions, but this doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with homosexual sex. By the same token, some things in BDSM might repulse or frighten you, but this does not automatically mean there’s anything wrong. Be sensitive to the difference between your intuition as a professional, and your emotional ‘squick’ reaction to something that’s not for you.

Sex is intimacy, pleasure, connection, and in BDSM people try to be honest about their fantasies, they’re vulnerable, they bring their guards down, trusting that they will be accepted and loved. And whether we’re kinky or not, I think that’s something we’re all into.

Marijke Vonk is a Dutch sex-positive psychologist specialised in working with sexual minorities. Besides working as a therapist, she is a writer and lecturer on various topics concerning sexuality. Main topics on this blog include kink, gender equality, sex workers' rights, non-monogamy and psychology.